One Yankee's love for history, food & hitting the road.

No-Bake Peanut Butter Squares

These peanut butter squares are my original signature dessert. I have been making them for years, and they have served me well. My mom got the recipe from my first grade CCD teacher and they were an occasional treat in our family, until I got to college and started making them all the time.

Peanut butter, powdered sugar, butter, and cookie crumbs are blended together into a delicious base, which is then topped with creamy, melted chocolate.

I always made them using plain graham cracker crumbs for the cookie component, until I was living in Scotland and realized that they don’t have graham crackers there. Determined to have them anyway, I turned to my favorite digestive biscuit…the almighty Hobnob…and was delighted with the oat-y, hearty addition to the bar’s texture.

When I tasted Peanut Butter and Co.‘s line of fancy peanut butters at the Boston Vegetarian Food Festival last year (in varieties such as maple, white chocolate, honey, spicy, and cinnamon raisin), I knew I wanted to incorporate new flavors into future versions. Unfortunately, I think I ate the cinnamon raisin jar I bought with a spoon before I had the opportunity to bake with it…so when I made them recently I used cinnamon graham crackers instead.

The cinnamon grahams contributed to a delicious base.

That was then covered with melted milk chocolate chips.

Spread smooth and made festive with the addition of some delicious candy corn before chilling in the fridge.

My new venus fly trap from Kayte approved.

No-Bake Peanut Butter Squares

Ingredients
2 cups cookie crumbs (2 “sleeves” if you’re crushing your own graham crackers)
2 cups powdered sugar
3/4 cup (1 ½ sticks) butter, softened
1 ½ cups smooth peanut butter
1 bag of chocolate chips (milk or semisweet) – you can use less than the whole bag, but it makes for an easy clean up to just use the whole darn thing

In a large bowl, combine the peanut butter, cookie crumbs, sugar, and butter.

Once combined, press firmly into a 13×9 inch pan and set aside.

In a double broiler or in the microwave on low power, melt the chocolate chips. Once melted and smooth, pour on top of peanut butter mixture and use a spoon or rubber spatula to distribute evenly. Add seasonal sprinkles if you are feeling festive.

Cover and refrigerate 1 hour or until chocolate hardens. Then allow to come back to room temperature, and cut into squares. Put squares in pretty cupcake liners.

I came across your blog through Brooke’s website and I love it! 🙂 I have seen it a million times during the last week and I am dying to try all of the recipes you have on here. I made the Peanut Butter Squares for a “Spooky Cookie Contest” we had at work and I won in the category of tastiest, thank you sooo much!!! Since I won, I had to write a comment about how great they taste! I emailed Brooke mid week and told her she needed to introduce us. Hope you are doing great in your part of the world (sorry, I don’t know where that is)!

Hi Fatima!
Thanks so much for commenting! I am so glad that you have enjoyed reading and made the peanut butter squares…and that they helped you win something! Aren’t they addicting?? 🙂 Are you in Illinois like Brooke? I live in Boston. Hope you have a Happy Halloween!

Brooke and I went to grad school together but now she lives in Chicago and I live in St. Louis. 😦 I miss IL sooo much!!! I have family in the Boston area and will be heading out there for a wedding in early December, I can’t wait! Yes, your peanut butter squares are addicting but I am dying to try the tomato gravy and cheddar biscuits!! I feel as though you offer so many great recipes and I love your blog for that. I just noticed that you are a vegetarian, so am I! Hope you had a great Halloween! 🙂

I have never been Illinois OR Missouri! How sad is that?! I hope you have a great visit when you come up here next month – things should be looking festive for the holidays. Also high five for being a fellow vegetarian! 🙂

How do you make this dessert without the graham crackers??? I used to have a receipe but lost it. I’m just not sure what measurements to use if you take out the graham crackers, use more peanut butter or more sugar??

Hi Sandra!
The graham cracker crumbs provide a lot for the texture of the peanut butter mixture. If you removed them entirely you would have a very goopy mixture that you wouldn’t be able to slice into bars. If you don’t want to use graham cracker crumbs, I would suggest substituting shortbread, vanilla wafer, digestive biscuit, or even animal cracker crumbs – just something to balance the moisture in the butter and peanut butter. Hope that helps!